September8, 2008

Mr. Speaker, we're back. After a 5-week break, Congress has returned to do the people's business.

The number one concern among Americans is the high cost of energy, especially gasoline. Americans want Congress to come up with an energy plan to make our Nation independent from energy control of foreign powers. We send millions of dollars a day overseas to countries that don't like us and hold us hostage until we pay the ransom for that crude oil.

But Congress is not going to deal with energy legislation today. In fact, our first priority, our very first order of business after this long recess is to name a new Federal building in Virginia. And the second thing we're going to do is name a new Federal building in New York.

So no votes today on offshore drilling, no votes on drilling in ANWR, developing clean coal technology, building nuclear power plants, or anything else regarding energy.

For 5 weeks the lights were off in the House of Congress, and while we were gone they stayed off. We might as well leave them off now because Congress is still in the dark about energy independence.